Real loneliness can do serious damage

[Guest guest]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/dec/15/brain-food-loneliness

Neuroscientist John Cacioppo says social pain is akin to physical pain. So what

can be done to make it better?

 

Tis the season to be lonely. Half a million pensioners will spend Christmas Day

alone, while nearly three in five people over 55 will be wishing they could see

more of their family. This isn't just a seasonal or British phenomenon. At any

given time, around one in five Americans - 60 million people - feel so isolated

that it makes them seriously unhappy.

That last statistic comes from a new book called Loneliness, co-written by John

Cacioppo, a neuroscientist. He says social pain is akin to physical pain. That

occasional pang of isolation - the odd Saturday night when none of your friends

are around - is no more than a prompt to socialise, in the same way that burning

skin is a spur to get your hand away from that frying pan. It's regular, chronic

loneliness that does the serious damage: increased stress levels, higher blood

pressure, disrupted sleep - all the way to accelerated dementia. Many pensioners

who complain about not seeing enough of their loved ones might end up in this

category.

 

Loneliness is contagious, even between people who don't have direct contact with

each other. A study of nearly 5,000 Massachusetts residents conducted over 10

years found that a friend of a lonely person was 52% more likely to develop

feelings of social rejection - and one of their friends had 25% more chance of

feeling lonely in turn. Even a friend of a friend of a friend was at greater

risk of loneliness.

 

This is a social disease that threatens to turn into an epidemic. And it has

spread not geographically but economically. In the new boomtowns of China,

community-oriented societies are beginning to be swept by serious loneliness.

The Chinese are getting richer, but they also feel more alone.

 

What can be done? Cacioppo wants to encourage neighbours to come into contact

with each other, by making cities more walkable. And for the seriously lonely,

he has one overriding piece of advice: help others through charity work, or cook

for acquaintances. " When you're lonely you feel you could just eat other

people, " he says. " But the trick is to feed them. "

 

Loneliness may be a psychological reflex to encourage social behaviour - the

most fundamental of all human characteristics - as this article suggests. An

element that is not considered however is the cultural context in which chronic

loneliness arises and the possible treatments for this ailment...

 

Matthieu Ricard, the former cellular geneticist who became a renowned Buddhist

monk, has written about the idea that happiness is a skill that must be

cultivated rather than a psychological state that merely arises of its own

accord...http://www.brainwaving.com/2009/11/05/happiness-is-a-skill-to-be-cultiv\

ated/

 

If we are not going to address the external cause of loneliness, the chronic

social fragmentation that we see in the West - old parents, unmarried

brothers/cousins forced to live alone because the idea of an extended family

living under the same roof has somehow gone out of fashion - then I believe we

should at least try to learn from Eastern philosophy's teachings about how to

combat the internal causes of loneliness and depression.

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

All sugars are basically food for Cancer, but this is the point.

This diet sucks in the Cancer and feeds it Bicarb... very crafty

idea. The mainstream tries the same with Cancer Drugs, but it does

not work very well.

 

 

 

 

Re: Baking Soda and Maple Syrup Cancer Treatment

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kAzU4NDc1BHNlYwNkbXNnBHNsawN2bXNnBHN0aW1lAzEyNjEwMTQxOTA->

 

 

 

<Posted by: " tita_mel " tita_mel

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p%20Cancer%20Treatment>

tita_mel <http://profiles./tita_mel>

 

 

Wed Dec 16, 2009 5:36 pm (PST)

 

 

 

Someone posted in another that maple syrup can aggravate

cancer due to its being processed by heat. I didn't believe it, so i

went to search on Maple Syrup + cancer. Then there was a website from

cancer cure that stated they don't promote this at all. I am now so

perplexed. Can someone enlighten me on this?

 

Melly